Halo Season 1 is free to stream on YouTube right now

For those who enjoyed Paramount Plus’ Halo series, you’re in luck. You can watch all eight episodes of its first season for free on YouTube. Furthermore, the date for the next season might have leaked a bit early.

Yeah, you read that correctly. A supposed flagship title for the streaming service, the 2022 series based on Xbox’s golden goose is now up on YouTube. There wasn’t any official announcement as to why Halo is available.

However, in the description of the episodes, Paramount might have let the release date for Season 2 slip: February 8. The date was removed, but eagle-eyed viewers like myself found it before it was scrubbed.

Released last year, Halo is a military-action series that loosely adapts the games. I say that since the show, in its first episode, did the unthinkable: they made Master Chief take off his helmet. No other media entry has shown John-117’s face, so seeing who’s underneath was shocking, to say the least.

It took the world by surprise, leading to record numbers for the service for the first episode. Though, a later episode had all of Master Chief’s armor taken off for… adult purposes. While it was hit or miss with critics and fans, the show did well enough to be greenlit for a second season. And, as previously mentioned, fans won’t have to wait that long for its release.

Release the Chief

The timing for the date slip seems a bit convenient given The Game Awards being next week. The ceremony, while focused on games, has had its fair share of adaptation reveals and news. In years past, trailers and clips for Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and The Super Mario Bros. Movie came out. Heck, even the first trailer for the show was revealed at the event.

So it wouldn’t be surprising to see Halo Season 2 get its trailer debut next Thursday. The show is expected to appear at this weekend’s CCXP convention in Brazil, so we may get something there. However, the date won’t be as big a surprise as they hoped. Still, if the show got a second season, it’s clear the team has something special left to show.

The franchise has seen better days, to be frank. Halo Infinite wasn’t as big as the team hoped, as delays and multiplayer troubles lessened the game’s popularity and impact. It would be cool to see a resurgence of the series and video game adaptations have been great recently if their rival PlayStation’s The Last of Us is anything to go by.

Halo stars Pablo Schreiber (Narcos) as Master Chief/John-117 and Jen Taylor (Halo: Combat Evolved) as Cortana, who we got to speak to last year. The supporting cast boasts the likes of Charlie Murphy (Happy Valley), Natascha McElhone (The Truman Show), and Bokeem Woodbine (Spider-Man: Homecoming), just to name a few. So, if you have time to kill, you can watch all the episodes free of charge via this playlist and finish the fight before February 8.